Gentlemen, Start Your Numbers!

My son is becoming a fan of NASCAR.

When we were watching the Super Bowl, Kai saw a promo for the Daytona 500 and asked what that was. I explained that it was a car race and he said that he wanted to see it.

I was a bit surprised, given that Kai has never been much of a “car guy.” Like most boys, he’s received many toy cars as birthday and Hanukkah and Christmas presents over the years. But, unlike most boys, he rarely plays with any of them.

I thought that he might forget about the race; I certainly did. However, this past Sunday, he reminded me that it was going to be on. So, as with the Super Bowl, we turned on the television in the family room, prepared some of Kai’s favorite party foods, and got Mom to join us.

His interest in watching the race had nothing to do with the racing action or the speed of the cars. He was not even interested in all of the crashes.

The reason he wanted to watch was all of the numbers. Of course.

43 cars! Each with their own number! Oh my!

Kai was pulling for 24 and 48, but was just as excited when 88 took the lead. He even went to get his toy race cars so he could simulate the action on the coffee table. I had to blow the dust off of them before they would get on the tortilla chips.

In addition to the numbers on the cars, his favorite part of the race was keeping track of the laps. There would be 200 laps to count. Woo hoo! At 50 laps, he declared that the race was one-fourth over. Nothing like calculating fractions to get my boy interested in cars.

The 200th lap was thrilling. He let out a loud whoop that number 21 had won, though I’m pretty sure he would have done that no matter who won.

He’s already asking when the next race will be. So, it looks like we’ll be watching a lot of NASCAR races on Sundays.

As a guy who likes sports, I’ll enjoy it. NASCAR isn’t quite up there with football, but it’s exciting nonetheless. But, the best part is, I get to have more father-and-son bonding time with Kai. Go 48!